EU Copyright Review: Tell Legislators to Save Code Share

Tarih:: 2017-10-05

Yazan Polina Malaja

The FSFE, together with Open Forum Europe, asks the
EU policymakers to Save Code Share in the current on-going EU Copyright review.
Today we ask you to support our newest campaign Save Code Share
by signing an Open Letter
addressed to the EU policymakers.In this letter we request EU legislators
to preserve the ability to collaboratively build software online in current
EU Copyright Directive proposal.

If the proposed changes targeted at online platforms are implemented, this would
force online code sharing repositories to use filters that monitor and
preemptively take down any content that could potentially infringe copyright,
including entire code repositories. Otherwise, platforms will be held
directly liable for any alleged copyright infringement found in the source code
hosted on their services. Such shift in the liability regime from
rightholders to platforms would durably harm the Free Software ecosystem
which often relies on code hosting platforms to build software together,
as it will result in more arbitrary code removal on code hosting
platforms.

How does Article 13 harm Free Software?

A lot of the software used in everyday life contains Free Software
components. Free Software is popular because it can be shared under
terms that allow and encourage using it for any purpose, studying its
source code, sharing it with others, and customising it according to
one's needs. Source code is often shared through online code hosting
platforms that act as a main access point for collaboration online.

The current legislative negotiations over the EU "Copyright Reform"
package, and particularly Article 13, indicate
that we risk seeing the imposition of far-reaching rules for every online
platform which allows their users to upload large amounts of content,
including code hosting platforms. Specifically, the proposals embodied
in the draft of Article 13 threaten code hosting platforms by imposing
new obligations on them. Namely, code hosting platforms will be legally
required to use costly (but ultimately fundamentally flawed) filtering
technologies. There are no known filtering technologies that could accurately
and reliably identify whether any Free Software is being shared in
accordance with its legal terms and conditions. In addition, the proposed
Article 13 will oblige online platforms to monitor their users and
actively seek for possible copyright infringements.

Consequently, Article 13, as currently proposed, would shift the
responsibility for protecting allegedly infringed rights from rightholders
to platforms in a way that disproportionately harms the sector that is
a cornerstone of innovation.

Article 13 would restrict the freedom of developers to choose freely
among a variety of software components and tools, as these tools and
components will no longer be available online. In a domino effect, Free
Software projects could no longer rely upon precedent projects and tools
due to an arbitrary upload filter that can prevent code being hosted online.
As a consequence, software will become less reliable, and digital infrastructure
less resilient for everybody.

Take Action Now

Please sign and share the Open Letter
both on behalf of an organisation, and as an individual. The Open Letter
together with your signatures will be handed over to the Members of the
European Parliament and the EU Council. For more information on how
proposed Article 13 would harm fundamental rights and negatively impact
collaborative software development and Free Software, please read our White Paper.